Daily Times

From kindergarten on, children are taught the importance of zebra crossing. Contrary to the zebra crossing, jaywalking is referred to as walking on or crossing a road with traffic other than the zebra crossing. It is a punishable offense in many countries. In the case of jaywalking, the responsibility for harmful accidents lies on the pedestrian who is not using the designated road crossing point. Likewise, climate change is a road of nature on which nature is at the driving seat, we, humans need to stop jaywalking on climate-change roads and start using road crossing points designated by nature for us. Let’s discuss what are those.

Firstly, don’t interfere with the natural cycles of the Earth. There are three major natural cycles, carbon cycle, water cycle, and nitrogen cycle. The carbon cycle is important, it is nature’s way to capture carbon and store it in the form of trees. Jaywalking in this context is to exceed nature’s limit of carbon emissions, well we certainly are exceeding the limit. The designated crossing point is either to plant more trees or to cut carbon emissions. The water cycle is the conversion of seawater to freshwater through vaporization and rain. Moreover, the conversion of seawater to snow and glaciers is also paramount for Earth’s climate. Jaywalking in this context is again the carbon emissions that are causing disruptions to the water cycle, consequently, Earth’s temperature is rising, and glaciers are melting. The cost of jaywalking is either no rain causing droughts or more rain causing floods. The Nitrogen cycle is another key cycle, nature uses nitrogen as a natural fertilizer to produce food, while deficiency of nitrogen causes low yield, excess nitrogen increases toxicity and creates water pollution. Jaywalking here is the growing population and mass farming which is causing a deficiency of nitrogen in many regions due to which fertilizers are needed for agriculture. On top of it, Russia Ukraine conflict caused disruptions in gas provision to fertilizer manufacturers causing a cascade effect of shortage of fertilizers, leading to low yield and concerns about food security. Therefore, in the future food availability will be a bigger problem than affordability due to energy shortages. This juncture brings us again to jaywalking on the carbon cycle, as to meet energy demand, coal-fired power plants are again being planned, constructed, and commissioned.

Climate change is a road of nature on which nature is at the driving seat, we, humans need to stop jaywalking on climate-change roads and start using road crossing points designated by nature for us.

Secondly, in the debate of 3Es (Economy-Energy-Environment), the underdeveloped and developing countries are adversely impacted due to climate change caused by the climate jaywalking of the developed world in the past. Now, we are facing accidents like droughts, floods, rising temperatures, seawater levels, and food insecurity, there has been a renewed focus on mitigation and adaptation approaches to fight climate change. These approaches need due diligence and financial assistance from the developed world to increase the level of energy efficiency, and energy transition to renewables. Developing and underdeveloped countries as of now cannot afford to import efficient energy appliances, and expensive mechanisms of renewable energy systems and retire their cheaper sources of energy, for example, coal-fired power plants. This juncture brings us to the argument of the economy over the environment. The way out and designated road crossing points are climate funds like the one established in COP27, their transferability to affected countries, and the transfer of renewable energy technology, so that affected countries can develop these mechanisms indigenously. The recently implemented program of Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM) by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is an actionable plan to achieve the energy transition. ADB provided funds to the Indonesian government to retire a 600Megawatts of coal-fired power plant and to replace it with renewable energy. Hence, the environment can be made a priority again by incentivizing renewable and efficient energy measures for developing and underdeveloped countries.

Thirdly, the argument of short-run and long-run gains. Well, sustainability demands that we plan for the long run. One generation enjoying an abundance of natural resources at the expense of future generations is not the designated way for nature to cross the road of climate. The macroeconomic model of overlapping generations summarizes it perfectly, that the young population needs to work and save for their retirement phase and use these savings to consume so that sustainability can be achieved. Nature demands the same approach as well, we need to conserve resources for the times when there is a shortage of resources. Pakistan’s natural gas reserve depletion is an example of jaywalking on sustained consumption which is also a jaywalking on climate change road. We have exhausted our natural gas reserves, but we did not save anything for the time when we have a shortage of resources. Now, we are left with the alternatives which are either expensive in terms of imports i.e., imported LNG and Oil, or environmentally unfriendly i.e., use of firewood causing deforestation and indoor pollution. The way out of this is to respect the natural carbon cycle, plant more trees so that the sustainability of biofuels (firewood) can be ensured without causing deforestation, use bring more renewables into the energy generation mix and adopt energy efficiency measures. Furthermore, coal-fired power plants are a cheaper and more effective way for energy availability, but their longer-run affordability is lower than the renewable alternative. Hence, we are required to build a case to attain energy transition backed by our international development partners, and financial and multilateral institutions such as climate funds, energy transition mechanisms, green bonds, carbon credits, and green financing.

What are the actionable options to avoid this jaywalking? Dynamic and multipronged planning is required, firstly, understand the ways of nature, respect the naturally occurring cycles i.e., carbon cycle, water cycle, and nitrogen cycle and use these cycles for our collective advantage. In this context actionable policy options are the use of renewable energy cycles (solar and wind) to generate electricity, the efficient use of daylight cycle to conserve electricity, the efficient use of water cycle for effective water management, saving flood water for drought period and efficient use of nitrogen cycle for high yield agriculture. Secondly, through climate diplomacy, transfer of funds from international development partners, and taking advantage of the energy transition mechanism established by ADB. Apart from funds, technology transfer is equally important so that renewable mechanisms can be domestically manufactured at a lower cost. Lastly, a plan for a longer-run, coal-fired power plant might bring some short-run relief but those are not a sustained option for the future. In the future, the speed of climate change will be getting faster, and we cannot afford any further jaywalking on the roads of changing climate.

The writer is associated with SDPI as an energy consultant. He can be reached at khalidwaleed @sdpi.org and tweets @Khalidwaleed_